Methods from automatic speech recognition (ASR), such as segmentation and forced alignment, have facilitated the rapid annotation and analysis of very large adult speech databases and databases of caregiver-infant interaction, enabling advances in speech science that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. This paper centers on two main problems that must be addressed in order to have analogous resources for developing and exploiting databases of young children's speech. The first problem is to understand and appreciate the differences between adult and child speech that cause ASR models developed for adult speech to fail when applied to child speech...

Everyday conversation frequently includes challenges to the clarity of the acoustic speech signal, including hearing impairment, background noise, and foreign accents. Although an obvious problem is the increased risk of making word identification errors, extracting meaning from a degraded acoustic signal is also cognitively demanding, which contributes to increased listening effort. The concepts of cognitive demand and listening effort are critical in understanding the challenges listeners face in comprehension, which are not fully predicted by audiometric measures...

Automated assessment and prediction of marital outcome in couples therapy is a challenging task but promises to be a potentially useful tool for clinical psychologists. Computational approaches for inferring therapy outcomes using observable behavioral information obtained from conversations between spouses offer objective means for understanding relationship dynamics. In this work, we explore whether the acoustics of the spoken interactions of clinically distressed spouses provide information towards assessment of therapy outcomes...

OBJECTIVES: To study the changes in behavioural and cortical responses over time in a child with single-sided deafness fitted with a cochlear implant (CI). METHODS: Cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) in noise (+5 dB signal-to-noise ratio) were recorded and auditory skills were assessed using tests of sound localization, spatial speech perception in noise, and self-ratings of auditory abilities (Listening inventory for education, LIFE and Speech, spatial and qualities of hearing questionnaire, SSQ parental version)...

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) represent a variety of disorders characterized as complex lifelong neurodevelopment disabilities, which may affect the ability of communication and socialization, including typical comportments like repetitive and stereotyped behavior. Other comorbidities are usually present, such as echolalia, hypotonia, intellectual disability and difficulties in processing figured speech. Furthermore, some ASD individuals may present certain abilities, such as eidetic memory, outstanding musical or painting talents and special mathematical skills, among others...

BACKGROUND: A tracheostomy is a surgically created opening through the anterior neck tissues and the trachea, into which a tube is inserted. Despite its influence on basic human needs such as respiration, communication and nutrition, little is known about the impact of tracheostomy on patients and their caregivers or what could be done to enable better care and quality of life (QoL) for these individuals. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this review was to better understand the current knowledge related to the experience and QoL of adults living with a tracheostomy and their caregivers so as to be able to improve these experiences...

BACKGROUND: Hearing aid fitting in infancy has become more common in the United States as a result of earlier identification of hearing loss. Consistency of hearing aid use is an area of concern for young children, as well as other hearing aid management challenges parents encounter that may contribute to less-than-optimal speech and language outcomes. Research that describes parent hearing aid management experiences of Spanish-speaking Hispanic families, or the extent of their needs, is not available...

BACKGROUND: New graduate transition into the workforce is challenging and can involve managing ethical tensions. Ethical tensions cause new graduates to doubt their capabilities due to their lack of experience. To support new graduates, we need to know what these ethical tensions are. OBJECTIVES: To explore the ethical tensions perceived to occur in practice for new graduate health professionals. RESEARCH DESIGN: This qualitative systematic review involved a search of five databases (Medline, EMBASE, AMED, CINAHL and Scopus) which resulted in the retrieval of 3554 papers...

Objective To identify occupational groups' use of specialty voice clinic evaluation. Study Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting Tertiary subspecialty clinic. Subjects and Methods We analyzed data collected on patients presenting to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Voice and Speech Laboratory over a 20-year period (1993-2013). The relative risk (RR) and 99% confidence interval (CI) of presentation were calculated for each occupational category in the greater Boston population using year-matched data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)...

OBJECTIVES: Total pharyngolaryngectomy with free jejunal reconstruction is often performed in patients with hypopharyngeal carcinoma. However, postoperative speechlessness significantly decreases patient quality of life. We investigated whether Provox® insertion could preserve speech after total pharyngolaryngectomy with free jejunal reconstruction. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective chart review. METHODS: A total of 130 cases of secondary Provox® insertions after total pharyngolaryngectomy with free jejunal reconstruction were analyzed...

Speech-in-noise (SIN) perception is a complex cognitive skill that affects social, vocational, and educational activities. Poor SIN ability particularly affects young and elderly populations, yet varies considerably even among healthy young adults with normal hearing. Although SIN skills are known to be influenced by top-down processes that can selectively enhance lower-level sound representations, the complementary role of feed-forward mechanisms and their relationship to musical training is poorly understood...

OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of the present study was to examine the relationship between suprathreshold electrically evoked compound action potential (ECAP) measures and speech recognition abilities in bilateral cochlear implant listeners. We tested the hypothesis that the magnitude of ear differences in ECAP measures within a subject (right-left) could predict the difference in speech recognition performance abilities between that subject's ears (right-left). DESIGN: To better control for across-subject variables that contribute to speech understanding, the present study used a within-subject design...

INTRODUCTION: Patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis may demonstrate different degrees of voice perturbation depending on the position of the paralyzed vocal fold. Understanding the effectiveness of voice therapy in this population may be an important coefficient to define the therapeutic approach. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the voice therapy effectiveness in the short, medium and long-term in patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis and determine the risk factors for voice rehabilitation failure...

OBJECTIVE: The Child Oral Health Impact Profile (COHIP) is a validated instrument created to measure the oral health-related quality of life of school-aged children. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a preschool version of the COHIP (COHIP-PS) for children aged 2-5. BASIC RESEARCH DESIGN: The COHIP-PS was developed and validated using a multi-stage process consisting of item selection, face validity testing, item impact testing, reliability and validity testing, and factor analysis...

Clustering is a core building block for data analysis, aiming to extract otherwise hidden structures and relations from raw datasets, such as particular groups that can be effectively related, compared, and interpreted. A plethora of visual-interactive cluster analysis techniques has been proposed to date, however, arriving at useful clusterings often requires several rounds of user interactions to fine-tune the data preprocessing and algorithms. We present a multi-stage Visual Analytics (VA) approach for iterative cluster refinement together with an implementation (SOMFlow) that uses Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) to analyze time series data...

The aim of this study was to clarify the anatomical relationship between the buccinator and the temporalis in order to improve understanding of the precise and coordinated movements of the mouth and the mandible. The buccinator and the temporalis were investigated in 72 hemifaces from Korean cadavers. Removing the buccal fat pad from the buccinator revealed that the fascia encircled the space between the superficial and deep tendons of the temporalis laterally, and the external surface of the buccinator medially in all specimens (100%)...

OBJECTIVES: Children diagnosed with auditory processing disorders (APD) experience difficulties in auditory functioning and with memory, attention, language, and reading tasks. However, it is not clear whether the behavioral characteristics of these children are distinctive from the behavioral characteristics of children diagnosed with a different developmental disorder, such as specific language impairment (SLI), dyslexia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disorder (LD), or autism spectrum disorder...

Evaluation of speech recognition is possible by presenting testing material in sentence form with presence of competitive noise. We developed new test of sentence intelligibility in noise in the Czech language. This article demonstrates results of the influence of the babble noise on sentence intelligibility in hearing impaired listeners with presbycusis. The time characteristics of babble noise are similar to human voice. That is the reason why this noise masking is more enhanced at the central hearing level than any other noise masking...